Any guesses WHY?

[jxxlxxs]

Okay, so I posted yesterday asking for solutions to the diarrhea, so now does anyone have any idea whats actually CAUSING it?? I took a new fecal into the vet this morning, looks great he said...sooo why the all the poop?? The only thing I can think of is maybe a food allergy?? So for now he is on a bland diet (made 3 cups white rice, 1/2 pound boiled burger, and 2 plain scrambled eggs-- all mixed together). Im hoping to keep him on this for atleast 3 or 4 days to see if that causes it, plus hes on 2.5 mg of pepcid 2 times a day for one week. HOPEFULLY this will get him solid...so any ideas?? He is eating drinking playing fine, no fever...everything looks good!

*heres a pointer for anyone whos thinking of making boiled hamburger... DONT LET IT BOIL OVER!! LOL the grease in the burger WILL catch the stove on fire...haha learned that the hard way :rolleyes: duh...*

[Doberluv]

Oh! Gee wiz! That's terrible. I'm glad the house didn't catch on fire and no one got hurt.

Well, if your dog has been looked at by a vet, and there's no known cause, sometimes, yes....foods don't always agree with some dogs.

My Dobe had a terrible problem like that when he was younger and I switched to a single source protein, premium food. I use Dick Van Patten's Natural Balance, venison and brown rice formula for sensative stomachs and allergies. It's helped a lot. Some people give a little canned pumpkin. You might p.m. Mordy. She knows a lot about nutrition and stuff like this. Good luck. Diarrhea, if prolonged can do a number on their intestines, so I hope this gets sorted out soon. Let us know.

[jxxlxxs]

OOOkay...so I dont know what the heck is going on with this dog, im really starting to just lose it with him. He has to go out every hour on the hour and the bland diet is having the opposite affect on him, now its just like complete GUSH sorry to sound gross...I called the vet *AGAIN* and they said ooh ok well you have an appointment right?? so I still have to wait until monday to get him to the vet...its been 3 weeks of this, he wakes up every hour thru the night, and you have to take him out, wait for him to do his business, and then bring him in and let him get a drink or he WONT go back to sleep. I never had any of these problems with Reugar, I just have not a clue what to do, I need some advice (even tho for some reason no one even read my post but 1 person...)

[SummerRiot]

you shuld try and get some Pedialite into his system! He needs to be rehydrated by the sounds of it. You can get it at any drug store. its for babies when they have loose stools :) And if you get a nice flavoured one he might want it :)

[Saje]

a second opinion never hurts either

[DanL]

Did he get into something or was he fed something out of his normal diet? We had once incident with Gunnar like that when he was real young. We were so paranoid he had parvo, but it was because my wife had put bacon grease on his food, and I didn't know that, and that afternoon, I was trimming some steaks for the grill, and gave him some of the fat. He got a double whammy and was out of sorts for 3-4 days after that, the poor guy.

[Amstaffer]

Vet checked him so no Parvo right....just making sure.

Where do you live? Could he have eaten any Sheep poop or Goose poop? My Athena went to my sisters farm and got in to some Sheep poop and oh my was she pooping her brains out for several days.

What does the poop look like? Is it Flemmy? He might have something caught in his intestines like bones, chewed up pencils...etc.

I would get a second opinion right away, pooping that much for that long can be real serious.

Keep us posted if you can. Good luck.

[RedyreRottweilers]

Slippery Elm powder has been used for hundreds of years for gut upsets. It's completely non toxic, they like the taste, and it helps a lot sometimes.

Find it at your health food store.

[jxxlxxs]

no, its not parvo...and hes been doing this for 3 weeks...im sooo stressed about this i dont even know what to do to help him (but dont worry, returning him to the shelter is out of the question)

[Serena]

Okay if everything checks out and your vet has given your dog a clean bill of health then it's time to consider other culprits...you guessed food allergies and that very well could be the cause..what does your dog eat and how much are you feeding?

The next step is you need to remedy the problem...Canned pumpkin (make sure it is 100% pure pumpkin and not the "pie" mix) and Slippery Elm are both excellent suggestions that you may want to consider...

Because your dog has diarrhea his system is already showing signs of being compromised and irritiated therefore you don't want to feed him anything that would give him digestive troubles...in other words take the white rice out of his diet...Your dogs does not have the proper system or produce sufficient amounts of the amylase enzyme to properly digest grains....white rice is commonly recommended for dogs with upset stomachs but studies of the canine digestive tract provide evidence on why rice is not a suitable choice.

[jxxlxxs]

okay, after almost all day of searching online, ive come up with 2 things i think it could be ( im only writing this in here to see if im right! haha) 1) small intestine infection, 2) clostridia those are the only 2 things i found that match his symptoms and i am going to be PISSED if its clostridia bc you can see it on a fecal (and theyve done 2) but you have to set it on the highest power and use stain/oil on the slide to see it...if thats what it is, say bye bye to mr vet, we will be for sure switching if I figured out what it is and he didnt (with his what, 8 years of college??)--lol sorry to sound snippy im both very tired and very frusterated! but were going today at noon so ill be sure to let you guys know what it ends up being. :) thanks for all your help!

[Amstaffer]

Make sure and let us know what it is....

[Tugger's Mom]

Hi! I know this may be reduntant....but my dog was just diagnosed with the possiblity of having Giardia......they said at the vet that it's pretty rampant this year. You may want to have the dog tested for that as well. (I've brought more poop to the vet in the last 2 weeks it's not funny--especially when they can't find anything in it!). Giardia testing had to be sent to an outside lab and won't be back for another week.....but my dog, in the meantime, is being treated with Panacur (fenbendazole), Metronidazole and Suffasalazine. And, my dog now has to eat Science Diet I/D because Puppy Chow doesn't interest my dog at all (he doesn't want his treats, either).

Best of luck.....I know I am anxious to get this resolved.

[jxxlxxs]

ookay so they took some blood samples and are sending a stool sample down to the vet school at ohio state to see what can be figured out, they said we should know hopefully by tmmw or tuesday, and then if not then by the end of the week...they sent us home with fiber supplement to hopefully help firm up his stool... blah...there goes another 150$

[Saje]

I hate waiting. :rolleyes: Don't you wish they could just do it there!!!??/

[Jynx]

you may find better results now that they've sent the samples out, alot of vets just don't have the greatest of equipment to really "test" thoroughly.

One poster mentioned giardia, which has to be specifically tested for and sent out,,another is coccidiosis.

I totally agree with keeping the dog as hydrated as you can, pedialyte, gator aide, that type of thing, I'd also try withholding food for a day to let his poor stomache/bowels calm down.

I saw where you mentioned you got him from a shelter? How recently? Coccidia is certainly a very contagious affliction but easily treatable with flagyl/metronadizole and a wormer specific to coccidia.

Here's hoping it's one of those two things, as I said easily treatable if it is.
Diane

[bubbatd]

Our clinic has a good lab and we get the results the same day !

[jxxlxxs]

yea its not coccidia or giardia, he was on flagyl for almost a week, so that didnt do anything!! he was also on panacur which is for the giardia...they havent called back yet either :( grr

[Amstaffer]

yea its not coccidia or giardia, he was on flagyl for almost a week, so that didnt do anything!! he was also on panacur which is for the giardia...they havent called back yet either :( grr

How is he doing?

[jxxlxxs]

i am FURIOUS right now, i cant even explain. after ALL this (and about 500$ spent at the vet for various treatments and such) it IS giardia.
what makes me SO mad, is giardia can be diagnosed in house, they TOLD me this, along with coccidia and most all of the other pesky tummy parasites, so when they did 3 differant stool samples, i would have thought they would look for that- considering the dog is from a shelter, and they were kept in poor conditions before we got them IN an the shelter, i would THINK that someone who supposedly knows what theyre talking about would think- hmm maybe its GIARDIA! idiots... it took them a 4th stool sample and blood sample sent down to OSU to see what it is. when we got reugar, i took him to the vet the next day and within 45 min they knew it was giardia... so why on earth did it take them almost FOUR weeks and 500 bucks to figure this out?? think im ever going back there?? NOPE and i WILL get my money back...this is rediculous...I dont think they realize that they didnt just lose me as a customer, i do vet referrals at the shelter probably 50 times a day and ive always said how much i like my vet... haha NOT ANYMORE! i WILL tell everyone and anyone what happened and advise them not to use that vet. ugh im soooo mad...i just cant believe my poor puppy had to suffer for soooo long and i had to spend SO much money, on something that the treatment meds costed me a whopping 10 bucks... sooo anyone from canton ohio that would reccomend a good vet??

[Amstaffer]

I am glad they finally got it figured out. How is your pup, poor guy has had a rough few weeks. What did your vet say to defend himself?

For vet referrals, talk to a local breeder of Saints and see who they go to, they should have a pretty good idea who's good.

[jxxlxxs]

to defend himself, the vet basically said that hes really sorry this happened and if it were HIM that had seen the dog, he would have been able to catch it ( i go to a vet hospital, theres 4 different vets, and although i DO request HIM every time, it never seems to happen that way and i get bumped to someone else) I think i found the vet im going to tho, i emailed my prof. from vet asst classes and asked if she was accepting new patients ( she has a really small clinic so they dont just take anyone and everyone who calls) and she asked why and i told her the whole story and she said that she would let her secretary know that i am to be accepted. so, good. shes not only a teacher, but she runs the emergency vet on saturday and sunday, and the other vet that works at her office runs it the rest of the week. so i think i trust her. if shes good enough to be an ER vet, im sure every day little things shell be able to get it figured out faster that dumb-a$$ at the other vet, another good thing, the other vet that works with her, his "specialty" animal is siamese cats, which i have 2 (kittens) so i think this is gonna be a pretty good fit :)